‘Opening of airwaves to do away with pirate radio stations’

Harare Bureau
GOVERNMENT will do away with pirate radio stations through opening up airwaves, a situation that would render them redundant, Parliament heard yesterday. Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Deputy Minister Supa Mandiwanzira told Senate that people were made to listen to pirate radio stations because of the failure by Transmedia to provide signal of legitimate radio and television broadcasting content throughout the country.

He was responding to a question from Mashonaland Central Senator Alice Chimbudzi (Zanu-PF) on what Government was doing to deal with private radio stations. “The Ministry considers these pirate radio stations as a nuisance that we must get rid of,” said Dep Min Mandiwanzira.

“In the majority of cases the Zimbabweans who listen to these pirate radio stations do so out of desperation because they are unable to get a signal of Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation in the area they stay. So they have no choice and end up, by default, listening to these pirate radio stations.”

The radio stations, said Dep Min Mandiwanzira, had failed to achieve their regime change agenda following the resounding election victory by Zanu-PF in the July 31 2013.

He said his Ministry had a fresh impetus to roll out transmitters through Transmedia across the country to enable everyone to get signal of ZBC radio and television and other legitimate broadcasting institutions.

The roll out would be achieved through digitalisation of Transmedia from analogue, a project that he said required $30 million to cover the whole country.

He said another way of dealing with pirate radio stations was to open up the airwaves, a situation he said started two years ago by licensing ZiFM and Star FM radio stations.